Love is a Dangerous Distraction
by TheInvisibleBlogger
Summary: Flatmates Cassandra Richardson and Eloise Hunter have never been 'normal'. Not really. But when Nick Fury turns up and whisks them away, they soon realise they're not the only ones. With Loki threatening the safety of everyone on earth, can they handle saving the world and falling in love at the same time? Loki/OC, Steve/OC.
1. Prologue

Author's Note: Here's the first chapter in our new story, Love is a Dangerous Distraction! Let us know what you think and, as always, anything you recognize belongs to Marvel!

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The party sucked. Not the music, or the location, just the social aspect. The game of spin the bottle was rapidly deteriorating into an excuse for the couples at the party to make out. The amount of saliva exchanged within the room was vomit inducing. Two girls sat next to each other on the sofa, talking quietly. No one seemed to notice as they observed the room and spoke to each other in hushed tones. They seemed to be the oddities in the room, the brunette with her near transparent grey eyes and the blonde who had kept her fists firmly clenched for a large portion of the evening. Their body language screamed awkwardness as they sat side by side but no one was sober enough to observe the pair.

"Did you put the plates in the sink after dinner?" The brunette raised her eyebrow at the blonde.

"You know I couldn't," The blonde replied. "Eloise, you know I was working on an experiment in the sink earlier. I can't mess this up!"

"Like you messed up my history papers on Thursday, Cass? Don't think I didn't see the tipex marks."

There was a moment of silence until Eloise spoke again. "You've got to be in early at work tomorrow, so we need to leave soon."

"Finally." Cass got out her phone as it vibrated in her pocket. "I just got a message from James. We're looking at biological tech engineering tomorrow so I need to get some sleep tonight."

The girls were about to get up when there was a loud knock at the door. Unless someone ordered a pizza, all the guests had arrived. Hadn't they? They both simultaneously looked at each other with a questioning glance and a confused look on their face. The blonde got up and glanced around the room.

"Well I guess since we're the only ones sober…" She didn't need to finish her sentence as the brunette also stood and made her way across to door. As they battled their way through the crowd, they saw the owner of the house, Olivia flounce over to the door, followed by a rather drunk looking boy. The girls quickly made their way over to the other pair but stopped as soon as they can within 5 metres. They could save the drunks from humiliation if need be but could also laugh at their incoherent babbling. They watched, intrigued as Olivia (a friend of a friend) opened the door to reveal a tall man, wearing an eye patch. The drunken girl smiled and said with a slightly slurred tone, "Look it's a pirate."

The man looked at them, unamused, and replied, "I'm looking for Cassandra Richardson and Eloise Hunter." The aforementioned girls glanced at each other. Who is this guy?

"No can do, buddy." The intoxicated guy slapped the unamused man on the chest.

"I don't think you quite understand," The man in black took a step over the threshold of the house. "It's urgent." The brunette, Eloise, stepped forward, putting herself between the drunks and the mysterious guy. She couldn't deal with a fight tonight, especially when her flat mate was around and had a tendency to get involved in the occasional violent dispute.

"Miss. Hunter, I need you and Miss. Richardson to come with me." The man in black spoke with a tone of authority.

"Back off, Patchy." The drunken guy said, tripping slightly onto the arm of the girl.

"Yeah, get out of my house, paedo!" She glared at him in drunken anger.

"As I said, I just need to talk to Miss. Richardson and Miss. Hunter. This doesn't concern you." The man looked directly at the pair with a strange look in his eye.

"Back off!" The drunken man pushed the man in black in the chest with considerable force, causing him to stumble back a pace but nevertheless he held his ground. Eloise waved off the drunken pair and looked at the man in question.

"What do you want us for?" She looked up at him without an ounce of fear in her eyes.

"It's top secret. Could we take this outside?" The man gestured towards the open door and walked out without looking back. Eloise turned to follow but Cass grabbed her arm.

"Top secret?" She said raising her eyebrows "Are you seriously buying that?" Eloise took a moment to consider.

"Look, lets just see what he wants and if it's nothing important then we can just head home." Cass nodded in agreement.

"And get a take away?" She added, eyeing the untouched party food through the kitchen door.

"Agreed." Eloise replied. As Cass turned to follow her friend, she felt a wave of nervousness...this man, he couldn't possibly know about, her...affliction, could he? She'd managed to keep it a close-guarded secret, so it was impossible for him to know anything. With a slight feeling of reassurance, she pushed the thought aside and followed her friend. Eloise heard her friend's footsteps behind her and followed the mysterious man until he stopped; back still turned, in the middle of Olivia's garden. Cass caught up quickly and they waited in silence for the man to say something. The summer breeze was blowing lightly and Cass quickly checked her phone for the time. It was quarter past 10.

"My name is Nick Fury," The man turned around abruptly and looked down at the two girls with a piercing gaze. "I am the Director of an organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D and we need your help." Eloise's brow furrowed at his words and Cass raised an eyebrow skeptically.

"What do you need both of our help with?" Cass spoke with confidence despite the Fury's tone of authority. He brought out two folders from within his black trench coat and handed one to each girl.

"An object known as the Tesseract has been stolen by a hostile force and we need your help getting it back." He gripped his hands behind his back. "This is a matter of war." He was about to speak again when he was cut off.

"Why do you need us?" Eloise finally spoke. Fury smirked grimly.

"We've been tracking you both since a young age, Miss. Hunter. We know all about your abilities and that is why we need you."

"Do we get any say in this?" Cass crossed her arms in front of her in a defensive manner.

"I'm afraid not." Eloise was about to protest. "But as soon as we find the cube, we'll send you straight back home. No funny business." He said finitely. Cass sighed and exchanged a look with her friend.

"When are we going?" She asked Fury. He nodded his head towards the blacked out car sitting close by.

"We need you now."

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The two girls arrived within 10 minutes at their house in Stoke Newington thanks to Fury's maniac driver and the lack of traffic on the streets. They'd been told to pack for at least a few weeks any essentials they would need. Eloise was standing in the bathroom packing two separate toiletry bags, whilst Cass was yelling through which books they'd want to take with them.

"All the Harry Potter's?" Cass shouted as she juggled all seven books into Eloise's purple suitcase.

"Well, you insist on taking all three types of defrizzing conditioner, so stop complaining!" Eloise replied grabbing her friend's bag and throwing it out of the bathroom in her general direction. That was met with a 'ouch' and a loud bang. She walked out of the bathroom and saw it was 10:40pm.

"Shit, we have 5 minutes to get out of these clothes." She sped off down the landing towards her bedroom and Cass mirrored her, only turning to the right.

"Cass, what are you wearing?" Eloise said as she sifted through her wardrobe.

"Grey vest top, black hoodie and blue cut-off trakkies!" Muffled grumbling followed that. Eloise carefully discarded her black lace dress and put on a plain white ¾ sleeve top and tight khaki-coloured jean-trousers, followed by a chunky brown cardigan and fluffy brown uggs.

"You ready?" Eloise called through to Cass, who was putting her hair up in a loose ponytail. She grabbed her hoodie as she ran through the doorway and down the stairs.

"Did you pack my book on the Holy War?" Eloise's voice came from upstairs.

"Yes, just like you told me." Cass zipped up her blue suitcase and dragged it through, near the doorway. There was a series of loud thumps as Eloise threw her suitcase down the stairs. She followed it seconds after in a more graceful manner.

"I hope there's nothing breakable in there.' She mumbled tying her cardigan. They stood side by side as they looked in the mirror.

"We don't look too bad, right?" She ran her fingers threw her wavy, chest-length hair and wiped off the smudges of black eyeliner. Cass smoothed out her wild blonde curls and threw a beige beanie on top of her shoulder-length hair.

"I look awful." She sighed and shrugged on her hoodie. Eloise raised an eyebrow in her direction as she opened the door.

"You look perfectly fine, Cass." She turned and was met by two men.

"Are you ready to leave?" The one on the left said monotonously.

"Yes, we'll just get out bags." The girls went to move but the man waved them off.

"We'll get them for you." They shimmied past the girls and grabbed a suitcase each like it weighed as much as a feather. Following the men, they shut their door and made their way into the blacked-out car that would drive them to Heathrow Airport. Once inside the car, they picked up their folders and saw that Director Fury was not inside.

"Probably gone ahead?" Cass suggested as she pulled out a piece of paper on the Tesseract. Eloise joined suit but stopped as she saw the name.

"Loki?"

"Huh?"

"It's says Loki is the hostile force. As in Loki, Prince of Asgard, God of mischief and lies."

"Asgard?" Cass skim-read over the file. "That sounds like a nightclub." Eloise snorted quietly and looked through the personal files. She fell silent for moment and Cass looked over at her with concern.

"You stopped talking, what have you read?"

"It says they've found Captain America." Eloise read the long passage and then said, "He still looks like he did in the 1940's." Cass turned to the page in her own folder and read over his procedure. Her eyes flickered towards her friend and then back at the page.

"This sounds like…" She trailed off and gave her friend a concerned glance. "Your procedure…it sounds like…"

"Spit it out already, Cass." Eloise said coldly.

"Maybe he could-"

"Don't say what you're going to. I doubt he'd want to talk about his past any more than I'd want to."

"I'm sorry." She patted her friend on the shoulder and changed the subject. "So all these Norse myths are actually true?"

"Apparently so." Eloise flipped past another page. "Thor's profile is here as well." Cass gave her a blank look. "Thor is Loki's brother and the God of thunder. Surely you've heard of him?" Cass scoffed.

"Not all of us work in a museum!"

"No, you work in a university lab, genius."

"Which is why I'm helping Banner!" Cass picked up his sheet of paper and raised an eyebrow as she saw a picture of the Hulk smashing up Harlem.

"Another scientist with anger issues? You two are a match made in heaven." Eloise smirked and ducked away as Cass hit her with the folder.

"Come on, we've got a plane to catch." Eloise said, spotting the airport out of the window.

"And some fellow freaks to meet." Cass replied with a twinkle in her eyes.

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Authors Note: Thanks for reading! Any reviews/suggestions are much appreciated! A & C x


	2. Chapter 1 - First Impressions

AN – Here is chapter 2! As always Marvel own most things, except El, Cass and our writing. Enjoy! :)

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Cass walked down the corridor as Eloise trailed behind talking to the S.H.I.E.L.D agent.

"They're all on the bridge, Miss." The female agent pointed in the general direction of conversation. Eloise thanked her and ran to catch up with her friend.

"It's mental, isn't it?" Eloise looked around with wide eyes. "All the rest of the team are up on the bridge." Cass huffed loudly.

"I'm getting a headache." She massaged her temples. "The electrical signals are messing with my grey matter. It's like…" She threw up her hands in annoyance. "…A fiesta in my head." Eloise gave her a smile laced with sympathy.

"Perhaps we could have some fun in here?" She suggested. "Get the party started seen as we are 'at war'?" She held out her hand for them to stop and pulled her friend to the side.

"What do you have in mind?" Cass grimaced as she readjusted her beanie hat. Eloise tapped her ear and dragged her friend round the corner until they were close enough to hear what the Avengers were saying. They stood there, looking casual, as not to bring too much attention upon themselves.

"He got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier." A quiet male voice said.

"122 million." Cass corrected under her breath, causing Eloise to smile slightly.

"Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect." Another male voice added.

"Well, if he could do that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet." The first replied.

"Finally, someone who speaks English." The other voice commented.

"Is that what just happened?" A third male voice added his in a whisper.

"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner. You're work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster." The second voice said, presumably to Bruce Banner. There was silence for a moment.

"Maybe we should make an entrance?" Cass suggested and Eloise groaned.

"Fury will kill you for it." She raised an eyebrow and tuned back into the conversation happening next door.

"Thanks." The first voice, Dr. Banner, replied.

Cass concentrated for a moment and they all heard ticking.

"Cass! You took over the sound system." Eloise swatted her shoulder.

"Fine, you can go all invisible and I'll go on my own then." Her friend walked off towards the ticking.

"Am I the only person that hears the clock from Peter Pan?" A female voice asked from inside the bridge.

"Peter Pan?" Another male voice asked.

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On the bridge, a guitar suddenly kicked in through the speakers and all eyes looked towards Tony Stark.

"Hey." He held his hands up in a defensive manner. "Just because it's AC/DC and involved computer hacking, doesn't mean it was me."

"I know it wasn't you." Nick Fury walked over to the group. "It was our newest recruits." He sighed and walked over to his monitors. "One of them has a liking for technology."

"Well, I like them already."

"Thank you very much, Mr. Stark." A new voice said. It was Cass. She walked alone over to where Director Fury was standing and looked over his shoulder at his work. She could feel the others gazes piercing her back.

"Stop that out-of-tune rubbish, Cassandra, and tell me where Eloise is right now." The music came to a sudden halt and the sound of talking increased once again.

"Where's Agent Hunter?"

"El is around…" She trailed off and noticed a slight fluctuation in the electron levels in the corner. "Observing." Fury cleared her throat and gave her a stern look.

"I'm here, Director Fury." Another voice came from the right and everyone turned and saw Eloise standing awkwardly over at the side. He beckoned her over with a gloved hand and came and stood next to her friend.

"Avengers, I want you to meet your last two members: Cassandra Richardson and Eloise Hunter." Eloise gave everyone a smile and Cass simply nodded her head. "Ladies, meet Dr. Bruce Banner, Tony Stark, Natasha Romanoff, Thor of Asgard and Captain Steve Rogers." He gestured towards each person.

"Pleased to meet you all." Eloise said softly. Thor walked towards her, wearing a large smile.

"You speak in the tongue of Asgard, tiny Midgardian." He was referring to the British accents that both parties had. He engulfed her slight frame in her giant arms and gave her a tight embrace. Once he'd let her go, he turned to Cass with open arms.

"I'm good thanks, Muscles." She patted his biceps and he ruffled her hair.

"That is quite alright, Lady Cassandra." Thor gave out a hearty laugh and walked back over to lean on the table. Fury cleared his throat again.

"Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube. I was hoping you might join him, Mr. Stark, Miss. Richardson."

"Let's start with that stick of his. It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon." Steve said. Cass felt Eloise's body tense up beside her and caught a look of fear penetrate her friends face. She thought no one else had noticed, that was, until she saw Steve's eyes on her Eloise's now neutral face.

"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube. And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys." Fury gave everyone a hard look.

"Monkeys? I do not understand." Thor thought for a moment.

"I do." Steve pointed at Thor with a gloved hand. Tony rolled his eyes. "I understood that reference." Eloise couldn't help but smile at the sound of his understanding.

"Hunter, Richardson, I'm going to get Coulson to do a physical on you both, so we know where your powers are at." Fury looked from one to the other.

"Yes, sir." They said in unison and shared an amused glance. It was like being in the army.

"Yeah, about them." Stark interrupted their staring competition. He pointed at the pair as if they were children. "Why can't I find any of their personal data on the S.H.I.E.L.D database?"

"I could." Cass held up her hand. Stark gave her a smirk.

"You should still be in diapers, little girl, not playing around with mummy and daddy's computers." He crossed his arms over her chest and saw that Cass had shut her eyes and was now breathing deeply. "What's she doing? Going into self-destruct mode?" Her eyes opened and the lights above the bridge began to flicker. The agents working on the computers and the rest of the team, minus Tony who looked amused, began to look anxiously towards the Cass's angry form.

"Cass." Eloise stood in front of her and gripped her upper arms. "You can get him when he's wearing his Iron Man suit, not right now." Within a few seconds, the lights stopped flickering and Eloise moved back to her original place.

"A technopath." Stark actually looked mildly impressed. "Nice." He turned to Eloise. "So you're her babysitter then?"

"Enough, Stark." Fury glared at the man, who backed away towards Bruce, holding his hands up in surrender. "Coulson, could you take Hunter and Richardson to collect some more comfortable clothing and then initiate testing within the next hour. They need to be rested for the morning." Agent Coulson nodded and left the bridge. The rest of the team began dispersing. With a quick grin in the direction of her friend, Eloise followed after Coulson.

"Hey, Rogers." Fury called, as Steve started to walk to the lab with Banner, Stark and Cass. "I think I just found you another training partner." Steve looked over at El, and then back to Fury, who gave him a sly grin before sweeping off towards the lower section of the bridge.

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A/N: Ta Da! We hope you enjoyed it. As always, reviews, comments, criticism etc. are very welcome. Also trying to keep the characters in…well…character, is a big focus for us, so we'd love you to let us know how we did on that front. That's all. Thanks for reading.

C and A x

P.S We will warn you that Chapter 3 might not be up straight away, it's still in progress. But rest assured, we will do our best to upload ASAP. :)


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